Intel Prepares 500-Watt Xeon 6 SKUs of Granite Rapids and Sierra Forest

Intel is preparing to unveil its cutting-edge Xeon 6 series server CPUs, known as Granite Rapids and Sierra Forest. These forthcoming processors are set to deliver a significant boost in performance, foreshadowing a new era of computing power, albeit with a trade-off in increased power consumption. Two days ago, Yuuki_Ans posted information about the Beechnut City validation platform. Today, he updated the X thread with more information that Intel is significantly boosting core counts across its new Xeon 6 lineup. The flagship Xeon 6 6980P is a behemoth, packing 128 cores with a blistering 500 Watt Thermal Design Power (TDP) rating. In fact, Intel is equipping five of its Xeon 6 CPUs with a sky-high 500 W TDP, including the top four Granite Rapids parts and even the flagship Sierra Forest SKU, which is composed entirely of efficiency cores. This marks a substantial increase from Intel’s previous Xeon Scalable processors, which maxed out at 350-385 Watts.

The trade-off for this performance boost is a dramatic rise in power consumption. By nearly doubling the TDP ceiling, Intel can double the core count from 64 to 128 cores on its Granite Rapids CPUs, vastly improving its multi-core capabilities. However, this focus on raw performance over power efficiency means server manufacturers must redesign their cooling solutions to accommodate Intel’s flagship 500 W parts adequately. Failure to do so could lead to potential thermal throttling issues. Intel’s next-gen Xeon CPU architectures are shaping up to be one of the most considerable generational leaps in recent memory. Still, they come with a trade-off in power consumption that vendors and data centers will need to address. Densely packing thousands of these 500-Watt SKUs will lead to new power and thermal challenges, and we wait to see future data center projects utilizing them.